Former Leighton Holdings chief Wal King said he had become ostracised within the construction company to the point of being “somewhat of a lame duck" CEO when the company is alleged to have paid a $42 million bribe to win a major project in Iraq.

“In my whole period at Leighton I absolutely and completely refused to be involved in anything tainted by corruption," Mr King said, adding that he had tried to avoid working in counties where bribery and corruption were rife.

According to a handwritten note dated November 2010 and obtained by Fairfax Media, Mr Stewart, who was acting CEO, recorded being told by Leighton executive David Savage that Mr King had approved the doubling of a fee with a subcontractor so as to hide a kickback to Iraqi officials.

Asked about the note, Mr King responded by querying why, if it was an accurate account of the conversation, did Mr Stewart fail to raise it with him personally. Just one week after the note was written, Mr Stewart and Mr King worked side-by-side in the Middle East, he said.

“If he had raised it there would have been alarm bells everywhere. If he had told me I would have gone straight to the board. He had every opportunity to go to the chairman and the board and he didn’t," Mr King said.

He said at the time there were “warring factions" inside Leighton. Once Mr Stewart had been selected to succeed Mr King as the next CEO in August 2010, Mr King had become ostracised within the company that he had run for 23 years.

“I had little influence due to Stewart wanting to seize power and myself wanting to step backwards," he said. “I was somewhat of a lame duck."

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Flown to construction sites in a helicopter

Mr King agreed to speak about the affair after The Australian Financial Review approached him to explain why as Leighton CEO he had flown to construction sites in a helicopter paid for by Leighton and piloted by his son.

It has also emerged that the construction company had paid for ­gardening and handymen services at Mr King’s Sydney harbourside home in Woolwich. It is further understood that questions were raised inside Leighton as to the appropriateness of some items purchased on Mr King’s corporate credit card, including alcohol from a bottleshop near Woolwich.

Mr King confirmed that he used the services of Bankstown Helicopters to fly in and out of construction sites and that the pilot for those visits was his son Alex King who was an employee senior ­helicopter instructor. He said he had personally paid in excess of $150,000 so that his son could obtain a helicopter licence and that Leighton only used his son’s services once he was fully qualified to a senior level.

“We went to construction jobs, to mines in the Hunter Valley and showed things the company was doing to overseas guests, including people from ACS," Mr King said, referring to the Spanish construction company that control’s Leighton’s majority shareholder Hochtief.

He said Leighton paid Bankstown Helicopters at standard rates and it was not the only helicopter company that Leighton used.

Regarding the company’s payment of gardening and handymen services at his home, Mr King said this was part of his salary package and that other senior Leighton executives also received home gardening services. The cost was included in the non-monetary benefits disclosed in the company’s remuneration report, he said.

In his final years at Leighton, Mr King was regularly one of Australia’s highest paid executives with a $12.5 million salary package in 2009 and a $14.7 million package in 2010.

Items purchased from bottleshops

Asked why Leighton paid for gardening at the homes of senior executives, Mr King said the policy had been in place before he joined the company in 1967.

He said any items purchased from bottleshops using his corporate American Express credit card would have been for company purposes.

“I can’t remember buying things from the bottleshop, but if I did it could have gone to the offices where we did a lot of entertaining or could have been a BYO restaurant or at my house where I entertained people," he said.

Mr King, who is at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, China, said he was willing to make his salary records available for inspection after he returned to ­Australia.

A spokeswoman for Leighton Holdings declined to answer questions regarding the use of Mr King’s credit card.

The company has issued a statement saying it takes the accusations against it seriously and that it is co-operating with an investigation by the Australian Federal Police.

The company has also said it has taken key steps to strengthen corporate governance and risk management. Chairman Bob Humphris has also written to shareholders and complained that media reports had been “inaccurate, biased and unbalanced".

Earlier this month, Fairfax Media revealed Mr King reimbursed Leighton for items paid for with his corporate credit card after he finished as CEO, including accommodation at Madrid’s Hotel Villa Magna at $887 a night, two nights at the London Hotel in Manhattan for $1626 and a $780 bill at Sydney restaurant Rockpool.

King has reimbursed company

At the time he was being paid $6 million over three years to work as a consultant for Leighton. He had agreed to reimburse the money on the basis that none of these items had been pre-approved.

Mr King confirmed he had reimbursed the company but said the total figure was $32,000 rather than $40,000 as initially reported.

The bulk of the expenses were incurred on a trip to Madrid to meet with ACS and had been related to his work at Leighton.

But after being challenged by then chairman David Mortimer for not having obtained prior approval for the expenses, Mr King said he decided ­simply to repay the money rather than argue about whether they were appropriate.

Fairfax Media’s revelations against Leighton Holdings triggered a 14 per cent fall in the company’s shares. Leighton shares are still 11 per cent lower.

In addition to the allegation of paying the bribe in Iraq, there are allegations the company attempted to bribe Malaysian officials for a dam project, that the company covered up a whistleblower’s allegations of internal fraud in a ship building project and that a group of senior executives set up a company to compete with Leighton using the company’s own resources.

Three former Leighton executives alleged to have been implicated in the scandal, David Savage, David Stewart and Russell Waugh, have all stepped down from their current roles.